Christmas in August!

 First of all, thanks to our latest followers, Eibhlin,Maka Jarra,and Daisy Ferrell,who have joined us in the past couple of weeks. Welcome!
 I went to an estate sale today.

That's a whole set of Greek style trays at the bottom,with a vintage Redball Jets shoe box,)My favourite childhood shoes!), and a vintage Q-Tips box.

Estate sales can be great because it's usually a lifetime's worth of stuff, and the stuff can be old too. But that's also the reason I find estate sales so sad. It's somebody's whole life, or even a couple of people's lives, going up for sale. It's awful to watch someone's precious possessions being ruthlessly dug through by a crowd. Things that meant so much to someone are just crap to be shoved out of the way while they look for something 'good'. I can't understand how the family of the deceased can watch as people paw through their loved ones things.
  The sale we went to today was being run by the kids of a lady who had passed away. Her husband had died before her, so her children were clearing out her house and putting it up for sale. We dealt mostly with one son, and we were there for ages, so we got to know him a little. He was telling us how he didn't keep things from the past. He was past that point in his life. But his siblings had been going through his parent's  things and saying,"Oh! I have to keep that! Mom and Dad loved that!" He had been encouraging them to let things go.
  When we got there alot of the stuff still wasn't out, so it hadn't been gone through yet. He let Ken help get the tubs of Christmas ornaments out for me. I was trying not to spend a fortune, but it wasn't easy! The ornaments were mostly from the 60's, which is my childhood,with some things a bit older. I took about half the ornaments in one tub,but when the guy said $40 I whittled it down. He still said $30, so I whittled it down some more. When I was whittling down the last time one of the other siblings came by and spotted an ornament that meant a lot to her; a chubby cloth angel that she said frequently sat atop their Christmas tree. She asked, "Oh. Is this something that you're taking?" Well, no. Not if it means something to her. I can live without it, and she should keep it.
  After my whittling I got the ornaments and a 10" tall feathered angel, (I think it's by Holt Howard.), for $15.

I have some vintage ornaments that match her. They're a bit like the little ones in front of her, only with heads like hers.

They look like those knee hugger hillbillies, but they have pointy ears. My favourite of these guys is the goofy looking guy with the blonde forelock. Love the cuckoo clock too!

The ceramic Santa and Mrs. Claus are candle holders for very small candles.

I love the 'children of the world' type doll ornaments the most out of all of the ones I got, except the feather angel.On the left are some nursery rhyme themed ornaments. In the middle are 4 raggedy Ann and Andy ones.

The nursery rhyme ones include Little Boy Blue, Jill,the old woman who lived in a shoe,Old Mother Hubbard,Jack(who jumped over the candlestick),Little Miss Muffet,and even Old King Cole, way down on the right.

Some vintage kid's books,including some first editions, and a cool tray with coffee sayings on it.

The nesting baskets on the right are very delicate. They all have lids. Underneath everything is a damask table cloth and matching napkins.

  When we first walked up I thought I wasn't going to find anything! We ended up being there so long it was the only sale we got to! We left our house at 10:15 and it was at least 1:30 when we left the sale! From there it was lunch, because we were starving, and then to school to pick up Ivy. Ken was glad to get home because he hates parting with money! Hey Ken, there's still tomorrow!

Some Small Finds

  After a full day of two community sales, two church sales, plus single sales the week before, last weekend was a bit of a let down. There were almost no sales. I made very few purchases. Here's what I got:

A So In Style doll, or one of the new dolls that uses the So in Style head,an articulated Ken, and a Ken who is apparently a prince.

A couple of Bradley dolls. I had some of these big eyed Japanese dolls as a kid. The rocking chair was from the same sale as these girls.

 

That sale also had this girl she's marked Emaso on the back of her neck, and signed Lissi Batz on her belly.

 From what I've been able to find out, her name is Marissa, and she was a limited release of 1000 pieces. This is her original outfit.

I love her hair, but her eyes are a little creepy, so I will probably not be keeping her.

I also got a plastic drawer unit to store more of my  'making stuff' stuff in, and a Cher album for Emma that she turned out to have already. So no really amazing stuff. It's been raining at least part of the day every day for nearly a week, so who knows if there will be any sales this weekend. The rain has caused my tomatoes, which have been laying there green and going nowhere all this time, to start to ripen! I actually got my first ripe one today!

A Yard Sale Haul

  It's already Friday and I did some more yard saling today,but I wanted to show you some of my good finds from last weekend. First of all is this bunch of goodies. The tricycle for Tippee Toes was 25 cents. From the same lady I got Cathy Quick Curl in her box for $3. Cathy was her childhood doll, and she lovingly smoothed Cathy's hair as she put her in the box for me.

I also got the When I Read I Dream Heidi doll for $3 at a different sale.

   I got these things at one sale. The musical Happy Birthday cake  plate and the Old Maid cards were 50 cents each, and the needs-to-be -restrung Mary Hartline was a dollar.

I kind of don't see the point of the Happy Birthday plate actually having that written on it, because once the cake's on it you can't see that anyway. I love the pictures on these Old Maid cards. I have an old miniature set with an Old Maid that looks like Carol Burnett, and the 1950's or 60's set from my childhood, so I've  inadvertently started a collection.

  This Polish doll was 25 cents, and came from the same sale as Cathy Quick Curl.

 I have another one of these that belonged to Ken's sister when she was a little girl. She gave it to us because when they were kids and the doll's hair fell out, their mother replaced it with Ken's hair, which it still has.

  I also got a vintage flowered tablecloth for 50 cents,8 vintage cloth napkins for 80 cents,and this signed Tasha Tudar book for 50 cents.

This is the second signed Tasha Tudor book I've found at a garage sale in this town. Both were less than a dollar.

  I got a load of Barbie furniture and clothes, a wooden swinging doll cradle and some other stuff for $2, a Moxie Girl, complete with clothes and shoes, a nude Bratzillaz Meygana, and an 18" Madame Alexander My Favourite Freinds doll, all for $2. The reason I got so much stuff was because it was the weekend of 2 community yard sales, including the biggest one in town,(Almost an entire housing development has sales.)  plus 2 church sales and random regular yard sales. I bought a lot of random things too, like DVDs and records,a Holly Hobbie sheet set,several chunks of fabric, a set of talking Three Stooges golf club covers, an almost complete Moxie Girlz Magic Snow cabin,and two vintage planters with fawns on them.
    Coming soon,a new doll, and more yard sale finds.

Best Buy of the Summer So Far

 I just thought I'd share a good yard sale deal I got recently.I got all this stuff for $1!

 In case you can't see everything, the haul includes some Legos,unopened Disney Princess Mini Pets,some Littlest Pet Shop animals, wooden 1/6 scale furniture,unopened Girl friends 18" doll boots,the Bionic Woman, a Mego type guy with half an arm missing(If anybody can identify him, please leave a comment.),a few Barbie accessory pieces,and part of the booth set from the MiWorld Dairy Queen set.
  It was a pretty good bunch of stuff for a dollar. The Bionic Woman is even wearing shoes.The outfit is her original, but the shoes were from another outfit.I got all this at one place. Not much was priced. I just put a pile together and was ready to haggle a price. I didn't need to though, because when I took it up to the lady running the sale she just said, "A dollar."
  I haven't done nearly as much yard saling this summer as I have in previous years. I have just been too tired to get up early enough to make it worth it. My thyroid is off and my sleep/wake cycle has been off ever since I had to drive everybody to work and pick them up late at night. It's been quite a while since I had to do that, but I never got my schedual back on track. As it is, I'm just tired all the time. I'm also finding it hard to deal with the heat this summer. It makes me so lethargic. We don't have air conditioning, so there's no escape.This weekend there were several church sales and two of what I refer to as a 'Yard Sale City',(community yard sales). One Yard Sale City was the biggest one in town. So I made myself get up early on Friday and get out to the sales. I had trouble sleeping Thursday night, so I ended up getting about an hour and a half's sleep.On Saturday I was so tired from getting up early Friday after getting so little sleep, that I didn't wake up until late. I went anyway, and I did pretty well. I'll show you what I got this weekend in a few days.

It's Been A Hard Year. Goodnight Piper

  A little over a month ago we lost our sweet girl Piper.
 

 My friend Lori had bought Piper, a border collie who turned out to have nervous problems.She was afraid of everything.When left in an outside pen she constantly dug. Lori had made her a pen in the barn. That was no life for her, so Lori was looking to rehome her. Fuzzy had been begging for a dog for ages. I went to Lori's one day and, as happens a lot when I go there, I came home with an animal. On our way to her house Lori was trying to pump up Piper's good points. I asked how big this dog was, and Lori assured me she was "Homie sized", Homie being the small basenji/shetland sheepdog mix dog my family had from the time I was a kid to my early twenties. I got attached to the idea of taking Piper before I saw her. When I did I saw that she was not "Homie sized". Instead she was a huge dog,almost regular collie size. And she wasn't finished growing yet. But I had gotten used to the idea that I was taking her, so I did. To this day "Homie sized" is used around here to describe something huge.
    I brought Piper home shortly before her first birthday. (Actually, I came home with two animals. I also brought home our bunny Gabriel that summer day. Luckily Ken was indisposed when I got home, throwing his guts up in the bathroom. So I didn't get yelled at too much.) Piper was our first dog as a family. Emma and Fuzz were in elementary school, and Ivy was just a toddler. So the kids grew up with Piper.
  She was a sweet dog that seldom barked, and was afraid of strangers despite her size.  When we first brought her home, Pipe hid under furniture for two weeks. Over time we learned that she did not play fetch, but she liked to tussle. She liked rough play. When she got really excited during play, she would stray off to quickly but lightly bite a pillow or piece or furniture, before jumping back in to play.When she played like this her face looked so fierce, but we knew she would never hurt us. She was so smart that when she was told to 'go to the kitchen' or 'go downstairs' she just did it.

Piper went camping with us.Here she is, comfy with Ken.

  Piper hated to ride in the car. It made her so nervous she often peed. (She also peed if she got yelled at for something. It made me have to be quiet and gentle with her, which was good, because I tend to lose my temper and yell. It was good for me.) When we got our camper van though, Piper LOVED to ride in it. If she walked by when the door was open she was in it before we could stop her.  Dad's chihuahua Tiny was scared to death of cars. While he lived with us they rode to the vet's in the van, Tiny sitting between Piper's front legs, where he felt safe.

   Piper had a stroke last November. She actually didn't eat for most of a week after her stroke, and wasn't able to walk for 2 weeks. We figured she was on her way out, but she was in no apparent pain, so we were letting her go the natural way. After about 4 days Ken was able to temp her with some chicken and Ivy got her to eat some cheese. She was on her way back. She wore doggy diapers for a couple of weeks and had to lay on pee pads. Yes, it was messy, but if Pipe was prepared to make the effort, so would we. After a couple of weeks Pipe was back on her feet. She had some hip trouble anyway, so it was rough going for her. I bought her some joint medicine for elderly dogs, and she did improve. She was moving pretty well for a couple of months, but then her health began to decline again. Finally, we had to let her go.  She would have been fourteen this month.

Piper last April, before her health began to fail.

  Goodnight Pipey.